TZ legislator forced out of parliament

Sylivester Domasa

The Fourth Estate

Published on: March 21, 2015 at 1:08 am

Last Modified: March 21, 2015 at 1:10 am

PUSHED OUT: Hon. Zitto Zuberi Kabwe

A popular and dynamic member of parliament representing Kigoma North constituency in Tanzania, Hon. Zitto Zuberi Kabwe has resigned from parliament following his political party’s decision to strip him of his membership.

He made the announcement on Friday evening during the ongoing National Assembly debates in the country’s capital Dodoma.

Kabwe who had earlier claimed to not have received a formal letter from neither Speaker Anne Makinda nor his party Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) regarding his fate.

The outspoken lawmaker has been at loggerheads with his party leaders since 2013, when the party replaced him as the Deputy Secretary General (Mainland) citing “gross misconduct”.

Kabwe then filed a lawsuit at the high court in Dar es Salaam to prevent the party’s central committee from deliberating his membership.

But the High Court in Dar es Salaam early this month ruled to deny him an injunction restraining his political party from deliberating his membership.

Chadema’s Head of Legal Department, Tundu Lissu told a press conference upon high court’s ruling that Kabwe violated the party’s constitution by taking his party to court.

“I have submitted my resignation letter to the speaker this afternoon,” he told parliamentarians today adding “There is no need for me to go into details as the public already know that I have been stripped.”

The embattled now former MP Parliament in 2005 has been in parliament since 2005. On his ten years in legislature, Kabwe said he has garnered enough experience to even become a more stronger politician.

He will be remembered for his latest contribution as the chairman for parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC), the select panel on the controversial Tegeta Escrow Account Scandal.

The 2014 energy saga about the fictitious withdrawal of more than $180m from Tanzania’s central bank and diverting it offshore by top politicians and businessmen led donors to suspend about $500 million in aid to the East African nation last year.

The multi-million dollar scandal prompted the resignations of the then Minister for Energy and Minerals Prof Sospeter Muhongo, Attorney General Justice Fredrick Werema,

Susquently, President Jakaya sacked Prof Anne Tibaijuka, then Minister of Lands, Housing and Human Settlement for pocketing $1 million from the businessman James Rugemalira in one of the shady deals in the scheme